The Shadows-on-the-Teche is hosting the Telling the Full History Lecture Series this fall featuring four respected Louisiana historians. This series, which is free to attend, is part of the reinterpretation work the Shadows is currently undergoing to tell a more complete history of the site and the people who lived, worked, and were enslaved on the Weeks family plantations.
Dr. Phebe Hayes will present on Saturday, October 23 at 2:00 PM on Reconstruction and Jim Crow history in Iberia Parish.
Dr. Hayes will speak onsite at the Shadows Visitor Center (320 E. Main Street). There will be limited seating with required reservations. To reserve a space, please contact Shadows at (337) 369-6446. Masks are required for those attending the seating at the Shadows Visitor Center.
The program will also be live-streamed via Facebook and Zoom for those who are unable to attend onsite. We do ask that you register to receive the link. You can register here.
The lecture is free to attend.
For questions, please contact the Shadows at (337) 369-6446 or Shadows@ShadowsOnTheTeche.org.
ABOUT DR. PHEBE HAYES:
Dr. Hayes, a native and life-long resident of Iberia Parish, is a descendant of West Africans enslaved on plantations in present-day Iberia, St. Martin, and St. Mary parishes, including the Shadows. In 2013, following 26 years of service, she retired from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where she was a Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders and served as Dean of the College of General Studies. Following retirement, Dr. Hayes used research skills acquired over years of work to explore her own family history, discovering primary records that provided evidence of the true history of African Americans who lived in Iberia Parish. Sadly, much of that history was suppressed by racist leaders of the day whose aim was to erase evidence of African American success during the Reconstruction and Post-Reconstruction eras. Dr. Hayes understood the importance of these records and in the spring of 2017, she founded The Iberia African American Historical Society with the mission to research, preserve, commemorate, and teach the full and inclusive history of African Americans of Iberia Parish.
Dr. Hayes has made several local and state presentations on the history of African Americans in Louisiana and Iberia Parish and has been featured locally and state-wide in newspaper articles and podcasts, radio, and television interviews. She is currently working on a book of poetry and prose that she is co-authoring with Margaret Simon on the life of Dr. Emma Wakefield, a play about the history of one of Iberia Parish’s historically Black communities settled by Black families at the end of the Civil War, and a manuscript about the early Black doctors and dentists of Iberia Parish.
This program is funded under a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
